The Good Food Institute Opens Its Doors

On February 1, 2016, Bruce Friedrich launched the Good Food Institute in Washington, D.C., with backing from the animal-protection group Mercy For Animals. GFI is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit built to promote plant- and cell-based alternatives to meat, dairy, and eggs, on the theory that shrinking animal agriculture's toll on the climate and the environment required products people would choose on taste and price, not guilt. From its first year the group worked three angles at once: funding open-access research into alternative proteins, advising startups and food companies trying to build them, and pushing for policy that treated the new industry fairly. By 2018 it had joined Y Combinator's startup accelerator, a sign the approach was being taken seriously well outside vegan circles.